Beulah returned to the house to minister to her brother, but Mrs. Arthurs stopped her on the stairs.

“Your mother knows,” she said. “They are both in the room with Allan.”

Her first impulse was to rush in and complete the family circle, but some fine sense restrained her. For distraction she plunged into the task of preparing breakfast.

At length they came down. Beulah saw them on the stairs, and knew that the gulf was bridged.

“Allan is better,” her mother said, when she saw the girl. “He has asked for you.” And the next minute Beulah was on her knees by the white bed, caressing the locks that would fall over the pale forehead.

“How did I get here, Beulah?” he whispered. “How did we all get here? What has happened?”

“You have been hurt, Allan,” she said. “You have been badly hurt, but you are going to get well again. When you are stronger we will talk about it, but at present you must be still and rest.”

“Lie still and rest,” he repeated. “How good it is to lie still and rest!”

Later in the day the pain in his wound began to give much discomfort, but he was able to swallow some porridge with pure cream, and his breath came easily. His father stayed about the house, coming every little while to look in upon son and daughter, and as Allan’s great constitution gave evidence of winning the fight a deep happiness came upon John Harris. He was able to sleep for a short time, and in the afternoon suggested a walk with his wife. Beulah saw that they were arm in arm as they disappeared in the trees by the river.

“I haven’t told you all yet,” Harris said to her. “I have done even worse than you suppose, but in some way it doesn’t seem so bad to-day. Last night I was in Gethsemane.”

It was strange to hear a word suggestive of religion from his lips. Harris had not renounced religion; he had merely been too busy for it. But this word showed that his mind had been travelling back over old tracks.

“And to-day we are in Olivet,” she answered, tenderly. “What matters if if everything’s all right?”

“If only Allan ,” he faltered.

“Allan will get well,” she said. “When he could withstand the first shock he will get well. Of course he must have attention, but he is in the right place for that.”

“The Arthurses are wonderful people,” he ventured, after a pause. “Mary, they have found something that we missed.”

“But we have found it now John. We are going to take time to live. That is where we made our mistake.”

There was another pause, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the rushing of the river.

“Beulah was right,” he said, at last. “Beulah is a wonderful girl, and a beautiful.”

“She will not be wanting to go back home with us,” said the mother.

“So much the better. Mary, Mary, we have no home to go back to!”

She looked at him with a sudden puzzled, half-frightened expression. “No home, John? No home? You don’t mean that?”

He nodded and turned his face away. “I said I hadn’t told you all,” he managed at length..."I sold the farm.”

She was sitting on a fallen log, very trim, and grey, and small, but she seemed suddenly to become smaller and greyer still.

“Sold the old farm,” she repeated, mechanically.

“Yes, I sold the old farm,” he said again, as if finding some delight in goading himself with the repetition. “I thought I saw a chance to make a lot of money if only I had some ready cash to turn in my hand, and I sold it. I thought I would be rich and then I would be happy. But they took the money last night. They found out about it some way, and took it, and nearly killed our boy. Mary, you worked hard all your life, and to-day you have nothing. I brought you to this.”

She looked with unseeing eyes through the trees at the fast-running water. Her thoughts were with the old home, with the ideals they had cherished when they founded it, with the hardships and the sorrow, and the sickness and the pain, and the joy that had hallowed it as no other spot in all the universe the place where their first love had nursed them in its tenderness, where they had sat hand in hand in the gathering dusk, drinking the ripple of the water and the whirr of the wild duck’s wing; where she had gone down into the valley of the shadow and their little children had come into their arms. And it was gone. He had sold it. Without so much as by-your-leave from the partner of his labours and his life he had sold it and left them destitute.

She saw it all, and for the moment her heart shrank within her. But she saw, too, the futility of it all. She might have upbraided him; she might have returned in part the sorrows he had forced upon her, for he was wounded now and could not strike back. But she rose and stretched her arms toward him.

“You said I had nothing, John. You are wrong. I have you. I have everything!”

..."And it was to you, beloved, to you, a woman of such great soul, that I could do this thing...I should be utterly wretched...But I’m not.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, as one having ample time, and with the diction of earlier years. “I should be scouring the valleys with a troop of men, hunting for our money. But I’m not. It seems such a puny thing, it’s hardly worth the while except for the happiness it might bring to you, and Beulah."...

They sat long in the sunshine of the warm autumn afternoon, living again through sweet, long-forgotten days, and already planning for their future. Harris would again exercise homestead right, and with Allan to take up land alongside they should have comfort and happiness. They would go back to the beginning; they would start over again; and this time they would not stray from the path.

When they returned to the house it was almost evening, and they found the doctor from town busy over Allan. “Would have killed nine men out of ten,” he told Harris, quite frankly; “but this boy is the tenth. He’s badly hurt, but he’ll pull through, if we can arrest any infection. His constitution and his clean blood will save him.”

Before the doctor left Arthurs inquired if the police had any further details of the crime. Harris appeared to have lost interest in everything except the members of his family.

“Quite a mystery,” said the doctor. “I understand one of the robbers was shot, and I will go on up from here to make an examination, as coroner. To-morrow the police will bring out a jury, and a formal verdict will be returned. A systematic search will also be undertaken to recover the money, as I understand that you” turning to Harris “suffered a heavy financial loss in addition to the injury to your son. Of course, it is impossible to say how many took part in the affair, but it is not likely the outlaws numbered more than two, in which case they are both accounted for. The one captured had no money to speak of in his possession, but he may have cached it somewhere, and when he sees the rope before him it will be likely to make him talk. They seem to have a pretty straight case against him. Not only was he captured practically in the act, but they have another important clue. He owns up to his name frankly enough, and it seems the revolver found on the scene of the crime had his initials, ’J. T.’ Jim Travers, cut in the grip. In fact, he admits the revolver is . What’s wrong, Miss Harris? Are you ill?”

Beulah’s breath had stopped at the mention of Travers’ name, and she staggered to a chair. Harris, too, was overcome.

“We knew him down East,” Beulah explained, when she had somewhat recovered her composure. “I could not have thought it possible!”

“I didn’t think he would have carried it that far,” said Harris, at length, speaking very slowly and sadly. “Jim, Jim, you’ve made a worse mistake than mine.”

Mary learned of the disclosure in a few minutes, and followed Beulah upstairs.

“You poor child!” she said, as she overtook her daughter.

“It’s not me,” she shot back. “It’s Jim. He must be saved, some way. It’s impossible to think I won’t think it, no matter what they say! Let them find what they like!...But he’s in a hole, and we’ve got to get him out.”

The mother shook her head with some recollection of the blindness of love. And yet her own heart refused to accept any idea of guilt on the part of Travers.

“I want to be alone, mother,” said Beulah. “I want to be alone, to think. I’m going down by the river.”

As she strode rapidly through the paths in the cotton-woods the girl gradually became conscious of one dominating impulse in her maze of emotions. She must see Jim. She must see him at once. She must see him alone. There were things to be said that needed that admitted no witness. She knew that. Arthurs or one of the men would willingly ride to town for her, or with her, but this was a task for her alone. They must know nothing until it was over.

Outwardly calm, but inwardly burning with, impatience, she returned to the house and went through the form of eating supper. Then she dallied through the evening, giving her attention to Allan until all the household, except her mother, had gone to bed.

“I will watch with Allan to-night,” her mother said. “You need rest more than I do. Lie down in my room and try to get some sleep.”

Her mother kissed her, and Beulah went to her room. But not to sleep. When silence filled all the house she slipped gently down the stairs, through the front yard, and into the corral. Fortunately her horse had been stabled. She harnessed him with some difficulty in the darkness, and threw herself into the saddle. For a hundred yards she walked him; then she drew him off the hard road on to the grass and loosed him into a trot. Half a mile from the house she was swinging at a hard gallop down the dark valley. The soft night wind pressed its caresses on her flushed cheek, but her heart beat fast with excitement and impatience, and she galloped the foaming horse to the limit of his speed. More than once even the sure-footed ranger almost fell over the treacherous badger-holes, but she had learned to ride like the saddle itself, and she merely tightened the rein and urged him faster.

Two hours of such violence were a safety-valve to her emotions, and both horse and rider were content to enter the little town at a walk. Here and there a coal-oil lamp shed its cube of yellow light through an unblinded window, but the streets were deserted and in utter darkness. She had now reached the point at which her general plan to see Travers must be worked out into detail, and she allowed the horse his time as she turned the matter over in her mind. She had no doubt that if she found Sergeant Grey he would permit an interview, but she shrank from making the request. She might do so as a last resort; but if possible she meant to seek out her lover for so she thought of him for herself. She knew that the jails in the smaller towns were crude affairs, where the prisoner was locked up and usually left without a guard. The first thing was to find the jail.

At a crossing her horse almost collided with a boy returning home from some late errand. “Oh, Mr. Boy,” she said. “Come here, please, I want you to help me.”

The boy approached hesitatingly, as though suspicious that some kind of trick were being played on him.

“Can you tell me,” she said, in a low voice, “where the jail is? I’ll give you a dollar if you do.”

“There ain’t no jail here, miss,” he replied frankly, evidently satisfied that the question was bona fide. “There’s a coop, but you wouldn’t give a dime to see it. It’s just a kind of a shed.”

“That’s just what I want to find,” she continued, “and I’ll give you a dollar to show me where it is.”

“Easy pickin’,” said the boy. “Steer your horse along this way.”

He led her through the main part of the town, to where a one-storey building, somewhat apart, stood aloof in the darkness.

“Some coop, ain’t it?” said her guide, with boyish irony. “My dad says that’s what we git fer votin’ against the Gover’ment. The fire truck’s in the front end, an’ there’s a cell with bars behind. Do you want to see that, too?”

“Yes, that’s what I want to see, but I can find it myself now, thank you.”

“Say, miss, you better be kerful. They’ve got a murd’rer in there now Oh, say” with a sudden change in his voice “maybe he’s somethin’ to you? They ain’t proved nothin’ against him yet.”

“Yes, he’s a good deal to me,” she said.

“Brother?” he demanded, with disconcerting persistence.

“No.”

If her eyes could have pierced the darkness she would have seen a broad smile of understanding spreading over his young face. But it was a sympathetic smile withal. “Then I guess this dollar stands for ’beat it’?” he remarked.

“You win,” she said, falling into his slang. “Also, forget it.”

“I gotchuh, miss,” he said, trotting off. Then he called back through the darkness, “An’ I hope he gits off.”

“God bless him for that,” she said to herself, as she dismounted and made her way to the back of the building. She saw the outline of a door, which was undoubtedly locked, and further down the same wall was a little square window, with bars on it. There appeared to be only one cell, so there was no problem of locating the right one.

She stole up along the wall, but the window was too high for her. Searching about the littered yard she found a square tin, such as the ranchers use to carry coal-oil. Mounting this she was able to bring her face to the bars. The window was open for ventilation, and she strained her ear, but at first could hear nothing for the tumultous beating of her own heart. But at length she seemed to catch the sound of regular breathing from within.

“Jim,” she said, in a low voice, listening intently. But there was no response.

“Jim,” she repeated, a little louder. She fancied she heard a stir, and the sound of breathing seemed to cease.

“Jim Travers!”

“Yes!” came a quick reply. “Yes! Who is it?”

“Come to the window, Jim.”

In a moment she saw the outline of his face through the darkness.

“Beulah Harris,” he demanded, in his quiet voice, “what are you doing here?”

A great happiness surged about her at the sound of his voice and the warmth of his breath against her face. “I might ask the same, Jim, but such questions are embarrassing. Anyway, I am on the right side of the wall.”

She saw his teeth gleam in the darkness. What a wonderful soul he was!

“But you shouldn’t have come like this,” he protested, and his voice was serious enough. “You are compromising yourself.”

“Not I,” she answered. “These bars are more inflexible than the stiffest chaperone. And I just had to see you, Jim, at once. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“How’s Allan?”

“Getting better.”

“And your father? Pretty angry at me, I guess.”

“No, Father isn’t angry any more. He’s just sorry.”

“Times are changing, Beulah. But if he wound that sack around my neck in sorrow, I don’t want him at it when he’s cross.”

She laughed a little, mirthful ripple. Then, with sudden seriousness, “But, Jim, we shouldn’t be jesting. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“I’m not worrying, Beulah,” he answered. “They seem to have the drop on me, but I know a few things they don’t. Shall I tell you what I know?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it would seem like arguing like trying to prove you are innocent. And you don’t need to prove anything to me. You understand? You don’t need to prove anything to me.”

She felt his eyes hot on her face through the darkness. “You don’t need to prove anything to me,” she repeated.

For a moment he held himself in restraint. The words were simple enough, but he knew what they meant. And this country girl, whom he had learned to like on her father’s farm, had grown larger and larger in his scheme of things with the passing weeks. At first he had tried to dissuade himself, to think of it only as a passing fancy, and to remember that he was engaged in the serious business of earning enough money to build a shack on a homestead, and buy a team and a plough, and a cow and some bits of furniture. It would be a plain, simple life, but Beulah was accustomed What had Beulah to do with it? He scolded himself for permitting her intrusion, and turned his mind to the mellow fields where he would follow the plough until the sun dipped into the Rockies, And then he would turn the horses loose for food and rest, and in the shack the jack-pine knots would be frying in the kitchen stove, and the little table would be set, and Beulah

And now this girl had come to him, while he was under the shadow, and because the shadow would not let him speak, and because her soul would not be bound by custom, and because her love could not be concealed, she had let him know.

“Have you thought it over, Beulah?” he said. “I have no right, as matters stand, to give or take a promise. I have no right ”

“You have no right to say ‘as matters stand’ as though matters had anything to do with it. They haven’t Jim. No, I have not thought it over. This isn’t something you think. It is something that comes to you when you don’t think, or in spite of your thinking. But it’s real more real than anything you can touch or handle more real than these bars, which are not so close as you seem to fancy ”

And then, between the iron rods across the open window, his lips met hers.

..."And you were seeking life, Beulah,” he said at last. “Life that you should live in your own way, for the joy of living it. And ”

“And I have found it,” she answered, in a voice low and thrilling with tenderness. “I have found it in you. We shall work out our destiny together, but we must keep our thought on the destiny, rather than the work. Oh, Jim, I’m just dying to see your homestead our homestead. And are there two windows? We must have two windows, Jim one in the east for the sun, and one in the west for the mountains.”

“Our house is all window, as yet,” he answered gaily. “And there isn’t as much as a fence post to break the view.”

“What are you doing here?” said a sharp voice, and Beulah felt as though her tin box were suddenly sinking into a great abyss. She turned with a little gasp. Sergeant Grey stood within arm’s length of her.

“Oh, it’s Sergeant Grey,” she said, with a tone of relief. “I am Beulah Harris. And I’ve just been getting myself engaged to your prisoner here. Oh, it’s not so awful as you think. You see, we knew each other in Manitoba, and we’ve really been engaged for quite a while, but he didn’t know it until to-night.”

For a moment the policeman retained his reserve. He remembered the girl, who had already cost him a deflected glance, and he reproached himself that he could doubt her even as he doubted, but how could he know that she had not been passing in firearms or planning a release?

“What she says is right, sergeant,” said Travers. “She has just broken the news to me, and I’m the happiest man in Canada, jail or no jail.”

There was no mistaking the genuine ring in Travers’ voice, and the policeman was convinced. “Most extraordinary,” he remarked, at length, “but entirely natural on your part, I must say. I congratulate you, sir.” The officer had not forgotten the girl who clung to his arm the morning before. “Hang me, sir,” he continued, “there’s luck everywhere but in the Mounted Police.”

He unlocked the door of the cell. “I ought to search you,” he said to Beulah, “but if you’ll give me your word that you have no firearms, weapons, knives, or matches, I’ll admit you to this er drawing-room for a few minutes.”

“Nothing worse than a hat-pin,” she assured him. “But you must come, too,” she added, placing her hand on his arm. “You must understand that.”

He accompanied her into the cell, but remained in the doorway, where he suddenly developed an interest in astronomy. At length he turned quickly and faced in to the darkness.

“Speaking, not as an officer, but as a fellow-man, I wish you were damned well that is, very well out of this, old chap,” he said to Travers.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Jim assured him. “You couldn’t help taking me up, of course, and for all your kindness you would quite cheerfully hang me if it fell to your lot. But it isn’t going to.”

“I stand ready to be of any service to you that is permissible.”

“The inquest is to be to-morrow, isn’t it?” asked Beulah. “I think you should be at the inquest, Jim.”

“That’s right,” said the sergeant. “You may throw some new light on the case.”

“I’ve just one request,” said Travers. “You know Gardiner?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Have him at the inquest.”

“As a juror or witness?”

“It doesn’t matter, but have him there.”

“All right. I’ll see to it. And now, Miss Harris, if you will permit me, I will bring your horse for you.”

Grey took a conveniently long time to find the horse, but at last he appeared in the door. Beulah released her fingers from Jim’s and swung herself into the saddle.

“Sergeant Grey,” she said, “I think you’re the second best man in the world. Good night.”

The sergeant’s military shoulders came up squarer still, and he stood at attention as she rode into the darkness.